Layla Drury Signs Historic Professional Deal with Manchester United Women

Manchester United Women are about to put another line in their record books – and once again it belongs to Layla Drury.

At 17, the forward is set to become the youngest player ever to sign a professional contract with the club, a landmark moment for both a rapidly emerging talent and an academy system that has quietly backed its own.

Drury has been accelerating through milestones at a pace that has forced United to keep up. She made her senior debut in January, thrown into an FA Cup tie against Burnley. She didn’t just handle it. She scored in a 5-0 win and walked away as the club’s youngest ever goalscorer.

That breakthrough came at 16 years and 220 days, a figure that matters because it pushed aside the previous record held by Lauren James from 2018. James has since become a headline name for club and country. Drury has given United a new benchmark.

Across last season, while still only 16, she collected seven senior appearances in all competitions, including five substitute outings in the WSL. These were not token minutes. They were a deliberate step, a club testing how quickly one of its brightest academy products could adapt to the speed and physical edge of the top flight.

The answer was clear enough that United have shaped next season around her. The plan is for Drury to be with the first team on a full-time basis, a teenager embedded in a senior environment before her 18th birthday. No one has signed a United Women’s deal this young before.

Her rise has not been confined to the club game. Born in Wales, Drury has represented both Wales and England at youth international level, switching allegiance to England in February. That decision underlined how highly she is regarded across the pathway and added another layer of intrigue to her development.

Inside United, her progress is being held up as a proof of concept. The women’s side has invested heavily in recent seasons, but there is a clear desire to balance that with a sustainable core of homegrown players. Drury, coming through the academy and breaking records on the way to a first professional contract, fits that vision perfectly.

If she continues on this curve, she becomes more than just a promising forward. She becomes a symbol of what United want their women’s operation to be: competitive now, but built to last.

Anyomi makes London move

While United prepare to tie down one of their own, another WSL club has turned to continental firepower.

London City Lionesses have confirmed the signing of Germany forward Nicole Anyomi on a four-year contract after the end of her deal with Eintracht Frankfurt.

Anyomi arrives with serious numbers behind her. She scored 60 goals in 130 games for Frankfurt and was part of the Germany squad that reached the Euro 2022 final against England at Wembley, a run that reasserted Germany’s status at the sharp end of the women’s game.

Speaking to London City Lionesses’ media channels, she described the move as the fulfilment of a long-held ambition to play abroad and said the club’s project played a decisive role in her decision.

Between Drury’s landmark contract at United and Anyomi’s switch to London, the WSL continues to pull in elite talent and push its own through the ranks. The league is getting younger, stronger, and more ambitious – and careers like these are starting earlier than ever.